


Agni Kai Aftermath

by adirtyspoon



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:21:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25292326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adirtyspoon/pseuds/adirtyspoon
Summary: Slight AU. How I always wished the end of Zuko and Azula's duel had played out. My first fic! Pretty standard zutara.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 50





	Agni Kai Aftermath

The crimson sky darkened, no longer painted in the roaring oranges and blue of the Agni Kai. Burning metallic ozone, singed hair, the acrid odor of scorched flesh; a shadow on its knees, chained and wailing, belching blue flame in the darkness. Azure eyes meeting gold under the sooty, hellish sky. The screams of the shadow, the quieted moans of a young man, the trembling hands of the girl tending him, quietly begging him to stay with her. Her face is backlit by the glow of the water she is healing him with, and she is crying. She doesn’t make a sound.

This is what it is like to be Katara, the last waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe. The man who had hunted you across the world, the lost boy you almost kissed in the soft teal and green lights of the crystal caves under Ba Sing Se, the same one who helped you find the raiders who had taken you mother, the man who was standing behind you when even your family refused to… his life hangs by a thread, pouring from the wound under your hands. The thought that he would die without you ever getting the chance to have said goodbye… that he would be gone in a flash of lightning, struck by the bolt never meant for him. That is all there is. That singular, unbearable thought. And you close your eyes and plug your ears, and you feel the too hot, mottled, scarred wound on his stomach against your hands, as desperate as you had been when the shadow had nearly taken Aang.

But this time, the world doesn’t cry out in the same desperation as you. If he died, the world would keep going. The war would end, a new Fire Lord would be chosen, peace would be brokered, and the Avatar would have restored balance to the world. This time, the boy under your hands doesn’t hang the fate of the world on his shoulders. This time you know that nobody else in the world would care as much as you did if he was gone. This time, you are selfish and desperate and hanging him to life, and not because the whole world needs him. Because your world needs him. Because in this moment you have realized he is your world. And you murmur and sing between the ragged jags of breath, heart raw and bloodied, wounded as he is.

What cruel fate, you can’t help but think, to realize you love him so just before he leaves you.

Katara’s tears mix with the ethereal, glowing water on her hands. Her throat is thick with emotion. The wound has begun to seal itself, strands of muscle and bone regrow themselves as pink baby skin slowly grows toward the center of the gaping, angry wound. Still, he isn’t breathing. Still, he makes no movement, still no sign that he’s with her.

_Leaves from the vine_

  
“Zuko? Zuko, please! Can you hear me?” her voice doesn’t sound like her own, her head is spinning and she can’t feel her heart beating in her chest, though it thuds and rings in her ears. The shadow lashed to the steel grate, sobbing and spitting, finally quiets. The only sound that is left is that of silence.

_Falling so slow_

“You have to come back,” her voice wavers as she takes a breath, “you can’t leave me here.”

_Like fragile tiny shells_

She remembers something from another life. The nights spent on Appa, hunting the Red Raiders. She and Zuko had eventually come to talk about family, and they had shared stories and memories into the small hours of the predawn, singing for one another. Well, she had sung for him, really. His family was never the singing type. The whole voyage long, he had never sang for her. Until the night after they confronted that old captain, cowering and begging for his life in the rain. As they flew back for camp she fell into tears, and he had pulled her head into his chest, singing the song his uncle sang to him.

_Drifting in the foam_

Now she is pulling his head into her chest, running her fingers down his neck, finding his weak pulse and laugh-sobbing in relief. Katara looked down at him, ghost pale and so still. His wound had been healed and raw, angry neoflesh was the only reminder of what had happened. And still he wasn’t breathing. She tangled her fingers in his shock of hair, stared at the hauntingly beautiful prince, committing every detail to memory and getting ready to start chest compressions.

 _Brave soldier boy,_ Katara starts, choking the words out desperately. She cups his face, pinching his nose shut, lifting his chin. She is on her knees; a worshipper before a shrine, reciting a prayer she had once heard. She sucks a breath down, presses her lips to his, and gives it to him, feeling his ribcage balloon. Their faces are stained with soot, washed clean only by the streaking tears rolling down her cheeks and across his. Everything is silent a moment more.

And then he is coughing into her mouth, and she is rushing away from his face, he is gasping and moaning, and his electric gold eyes are fluttering open, hazy and dazed as they focus on her. His lips, so accustomed to brooding pouts, curled in a gentle smile. He reaches a hand up to her, brushes a stray hair from her eyes. Zuko’s voice is a sandpapery rasp, all crackling drybrush in his smoke charred throat, it must have been agony to speak.  
_“Comes marching home._ Tha-” he coughs weakly, “thank you, Katara.”

Unbelievable. The man who had laid down his life for her was thanking her. Her lips spasmed, quivering as the tears washed down her face again, leaving streaks of skin new and pink as the baby flesh on Zuko’s belly. She buries her face in his shoulder. Babbling, speaking nonsense, crying and sucking air down like she hadn’t been breathing every minute he hadn’t. Katara wrapped herself around the prince propped against her lap, and his arm found its way to the back of her tunic, gently tugging at her.

“No,” she sniffled, burying herself deeper in the crook of his collarbone, taking in his smoke and sweat and life. He really was alive, “I should be thanking you.”

Golden eyes, soft and warm as sunlight filtering through honey, fresh and dripping down the comb. And, more captivatingly, that smile on soft pink lips so often creased by worry and angst. He delicately pulled at her again, eased himself off her lap. He laid himself down on the floor, and reached for her, asking her to come down with him. Suddenly aware of how tired she was, how long it had been since she could truly rest, Katara’s head dipped in assent. She laid down on her side, head still resting on Zuko’s shoulder, pressing herself into the hollow where his neck and shoulders met. Shaky fingers, softly and with painstaking deliberation, tangled the frayed hems of his tunic. She squeezed the cloth until her fingernails dug into her palms, the heel of her hand resting where his ribs met his breastbone.

The wonder in her voice was palatable as she half laughed and half accused, “You heard me singing!”

Zuko’s soft smile sent her stomach in twisting knots. His cheeks took on a pink hue, the first hint of color to return to his face since he had taken that lightning bolt for her.

Fuck. He had taken it for her. That thought was dizzying, and her heart was dancing in her chest, and she buried her head in his side, shying away from his piercing eyes.

“The first thing I thought when I heard it was that I must be dead,” he sounded uneasy, and she felt him shift underneath her.

Unsure if he had more to say, she started cautiously, “I know, I thought you were too. It must have been scary. But I’m so glad you’re still here, Zuko.” She could feel him tensing up, and she couldn’t help but feel the butterflies prickling up on her.

“It wasn’t all bad,” he sputtered awkwardly. He could feel Katara’s weight shifting against him. She was looking him in the eye, brow cocked and head tilted to the side. He turned his head to the other side, embarrassed as he continued, “I thought it was.. that, um… that a Spirit was singing to me.”

He was beet red, unable to look her in the eyes. And suddenly she knew what he was doing; all the signs had been there. Spirits, he took a bolt of lightning for her. Her heart was doing knots in her stomach and she was fighting a grin. She could kiss him right then, she realized, took him and shut him up. But he was so cute when he was flustered, and she couldn’t let it end just yet.

“Not that you, uh, not that you sound like a dead thing, I mean.” His voice was airy and soft, “it was just the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.”

He coughed, “Well, except for the last time you sang to m-”

She had heard enough. Grabbing his chin and pulling him to her, tangling her hands in his hair and kissing him… Shutting a princ up had never felt so incredible. Maybe it was the shock Azula had given him, but she could have sworn electricity rippled through her from head to toe as she tasted the rough, chapped lips of the man beside her. She licked his lips and he whimpered, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close. She could feel their teeth bumping together; each of them couldn’t help but smile between the kisses.

“Katara,” he whispered, low and husky.

Her voice was breathy, tight and half moan, “Zuko.”

She giggled, pulling away from him. “You are simply a terrible flirt!”


End file.
